Social Construction of Jihad and Human Dignity in the Language of ISIS

Abstract

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is an Islamic revolutionary group that promises to deliver not only the Muslim world but the entire modern world from what it interprets as a West-made “crisis situation.” For ISIS, this crisis-saturated world is causing extraordinary Muslim suffering and ravaging their human dignity. Drawing on Islamic scripture and numerous other sources, including Muslim historiography, ISIS has formulated a subjective ontological and epistemological cosmos in which it is the supreme redeemer. ISIS claims it will rid the Western-framed modern world of its crises through waging a global jihad; a war of the sword. To accomplish its mission, ISIS has used language in which it has reconceptualised and reconfigured human dignity and jihad as a powerful recruiting tool. As such, it has turned jihad into a political weapon with literal application to wage violent war on its enemies.

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